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Topic: Skipping/glitches/drop out problems with Foobar and ASIO (Read 8673 times) previous topic - next topic
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Skipping/glitches/drop out problems with Foobar and ASIO

Hi folks,

I am new here!

I am quite new to the world of PC high fidelity, as I have recently bought a Graham Slee Solo SRG headphone amp (LOVELY amp!) and a SuperPro 707 DAC USB, which I have connected to my Windows XP computer.

Feeling the need to have bit perfect output to the DAC, I recently switched from WMP to Foobar and I immediately loved its streamlined interface and functions. But I also started to experience some problems, namely some brief audio dropouts/glitches. They happen very seldom, let's say no more than one per hour.

I have Foobar 0.9.6.2 with the official ASIO plugin, and ASIO4ALL (the latest version). I have disabled all audio peripherals from ASIO4ALL except for the one I want to use with Foobar, which is the Output section of the C-Media USB Headphone peripheral (which is how the SuperPro 707 DAC is recognized when connected via USB).

Settings are:

ASIO Buffers: 2048 (but I also tried less)
Latency Compensation: 0 (but I also tried up to 32)
Kernel Buffers: 4 (also tried 2)

In Foobar, I have tried from the default value of to 8000 ms of buffer.
Foobar priority is set to 7 (highest), and I have even tried assigning "realtime" priority to it from XP.

No hardware buffering, or the sound will get distorted.

In spite of all of these precautions, I still get the occasional glitch. I have also tried Kernel Streaming, but it doesn't work with the SuperPro 707 USB (no sound at all, the tracks won't even start playing playing).


Tonight, I decided to try Winamp. I am not fond of Winamp's interface, so it was sad using it after trying the excellent Foobar. I configured Winamp with Otachan's 0.70 ASIO plugin (the SSE2-compiled version). And it works like a charm... no glitches/dropouts at all.


I have read that for older versions of Foobar (0.8.x) there was a version of the Otachan ASIO plugin, but that he never developed one for Foobar 0.9.x. Too bad, because it looks like with my configuration the "official" Foobar plugin screws up at times...

Mind you, the glitches with Foobar are very rare, but my trained ears can't miss them and they are a nuisance.


Is there a way I can keep using Foobar with glitch-less ASIO support on my nice SuperPro 707 DAC (by the way: this Chinese DAC is a bargain, great quality and a very friendly price) or am I stuck with Winamp forever?

Is there a chance that the ASIO plugin for Foobar will be improved, or that Otachan will be made able to release a new version of his (better and more reliable) plugin for Foobar 0.9.X too?

Skipping/glitches/drop out problems with Foobar and ASIO

Reply #1 –
Since ASIO4ALL uses Kernel Streaming, why not just use the KS output component instead?

Skipping/glitches/drop out problems with Foobar and ASIO

Reply #2 –
Quote from: kode54 on
Since ASIO4ALL uses Kernel Streaming, why not just use the KS output component instead?


Because it doesn't seem to work correctly: no sound at all when I select it as output... No error messages, either, but the tracks won't play (the time indicator won't even move).

Skipping/glitches/drop out problems with Foobar and ASIO

Reply #3 –
Yesterday night I made a very nice discovery, which I hope will be useful to other users of the SuperPro 707 USB DAC...

It is said that the SuperPro 707 USB DAC can work without specific drivers. And it is true, as Windows recognizes it as a generic USB Audio peripheral and drives it with the usbaudio.sys driver.

Too bad that the Microsoft driver leaves much to be desired:

- no configuration options
- no hardware buffering in ASIO4ALL (if you enable it, the sound will be garbage: distorted and skipping)
- no support for Foobar's or Winamp's Kernel Streaming plugins (you get no sound at all with Foobar, and Winamp hangs up)


Yesterday night I made a very nice discovery... Since the SuperPro uses a C-Media 108 chip for USB interface, why not trying a specific driver for this chip?

Trouble is that C-Media don't offer drivers for USB peripherals on their page (they only provide them to OEMs who use their chips).

After a long search, I found the drivers anyway:

http://technicianspot.blogspot.com/2008/08...et-drivers.html

and another URL which seems to have a more recent version too:

http://www.x-drivers.com/catalog/drivers/s...m-108/9269.html


I tried both versions of the driver on my XP system, and they seem to work wonderfully.

You get a nice control panel to set various things, including a DSP feature which is similar to that of other C-Media soundcards (not that I want to use it, as I aim for bitperfect playback). Most importantly, the driver allows you to force the output frequency in real time (44.1 or 48 Khz) to avoid unwanted upsampling/domsampling.

Probably this nice feature of the output frequency would already be enough to guarantee bitperfect playback (of course taking care to set the Kmixer volume at 100% and disabling all DSP effects), but there's more.

With these drivers (both versions I have linked), hardware buffering finally works with ASIO4ALL. Not only that, but the Kernel Streaming plugins work great too (and CPU usage seems to benefit to it compared to using ASIO4ALL): I am enjoying Nick Cave's "Dig Lazarus dig" right now in KS.

I hope that my discovery will be useful to other users of the SuperPro and of other DACs based on the same C-Media USB chipset... it was truly hard finding these drivers, so I wanted to share the info with you and save you all the effort and time that I spent.

Skipping/glitches/drop out problems with Foobar and ASIO

Reply #4 –
wow, nice work man that's cool, im gonna try them out too, I use a Valab NOS DAC (wonderful cheap Chinese dac). good find, there should be a central large thread somewhere for people who own C-Media USB dac's, and the best software/interface and settings to run it on.

Skipping/glitches/drop out problems with Foobar and ASIO

Reply #5 –
Let me know if the drivers work fine for you too, then!

Skipping/glitches/drop out problems with Foobar and ASIO

Reply #6 –
Hi thanks for the driver. How are you "forcing" 44.1k?
 

Skipping/glitches/drop out problems with Foobar and ASIO

Reply #7 –
From the control panel of the drivers. You should have a new icon in the system tray: from there, you can enable the DSP effects, the equalizer, the volume controls (I turned all of them off, otherwise it no longer is bitperfect...), and choose either 44.1 or 48 for the digital output.